Cigarette smoke causes immediate damage to the lungs and to DNA, and President Barack Obama's administration will make stop-smoking efforts a priority, federal health officials said on Thursday. Smoking hurts not only the smokers, but people around them, and taxes, bans and treatment all must be used together to help get smoking rates down, U.S. Surgeon-General Dr. Regina Benjamin said in a report on smoking.
"The chemicals in tobacco smoke reach your lungs quickly every time you inhale causing damage immediately," Benjamin said in a statement. "Inhaling even the smallest amount of tobacco smoke can also damage your DNA, which can lead to cancer."
The report, available here , also says tobacco companies have deliberately designed cigarettes and other tobacco products to be addictive and that they have released new tobacco products that are allegedly safer but that are in fact just as dangerous and addictive. Benjamin said a third of people who ever try cigarettes become daily smokers.
"Over the last two years we have stepped up efforts to reduce tobacco use, including implementing legislation to regulate tobacco products, investing in local tobacco control efforts and expanding access to insurance coverage for tobacco cessation," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement.
"This will remain a key priority of this administration."
The report notes that studies have shown cigarettes kill 443,000 people every year in the United States -- one in every five people who die -- from cancer, heart disease, lung disease and other causes.
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